Though we were asked to have a solidified topic for this blog, I am still torn between doing either wrongful conviction or my Persuasive Essay topic regarding infant mortality rates (IMR) in the African American community. I am hoping you guys can help me choose a topic to pick based on the information presented in this blog post. Wrongful conviction is important to address because it invalidates the validity of our criminal justice system, and severely affects the lives of those wrongfully accused. A lot of the wrongfully accused serve lengthy prison sentences for crimes they did not commit. Some people are even held on death row and executed, even though they are 100% innocent. This in and of itself should be an issue that everyone believes should be advocated for. This topic is also particularly important to me because I want to become a lawyer who works with the wrongfully accused and give them the adequate justice they deserve.
IMRs are important because within the black community, the lives of mother’s and babies are negatively affected due to the racial and socioeconomic disparities which impact these rates. These disparities lead to a lack of healthcare services such as prenatal care, lack of insurance coverage, and lower quality of care, all predetermining the baby’s (and potentially the mother’s) fate. Both of these topics are very important because we, as individuals, need to speak up and advocate for the things that could/do impact the people we know and communities we live within. I consider myself a strong advocate for the African American community, and as you can see the topics I chose can all be correlated back to my people and the struggles we face on a day-to-day.
If I discussed the topic of IMRs in my Advocacy Project, it would differ because we are now shifting the focus to individual action rather than larger scale action. I would focus more on the things that mothers of these children can do to prevent the rates from increasing, as well as what health care providers could do in order to save an infant’s life. Doctors are a “persuadable” group of individuals because they are supposed to value their occupation, and if one values their workspace, they should value those who inhabit it. Mothers value the life of the child, so they are persuadable in that sense. I believe if I took this approach, I would focus on both bringing awareness as well as targeting a specific audience to take action, because IMRs are not only high due to these disparities.
If I discussed wrongful conviction, I would mainly spread awareness. If I did choose to have a specific target audience, it would be victims of crimes, lawyers, jurors, and judges. Victims of crime are persuadable because a lot of wrongful convictions stem from misidentification of a suspect. If we change the typical ways a victim identifies a suspect, rates of wrongful conviction could greatly decrease. Lawyers, judges, and jurors will be persuaded by ensuring they evaluate all pieces of evidence and are acting in accordance with the law as well as the ethics and morals surrounding the law. Values for this group may be targeted simply by asking “If your mother, daughter, sister, brother, or father was wrongfully accused/convicted of a crime, wouldn’t you want the best and most adequate evaluation of their case?”. A majority of these wrongful conviction cases occur due to missed evidence, faulty evidence, or both.
I hope you guys can help me narrow in on a topic so I can begin to advocate for either of these dearly important topics.